editorial

The US imperialists did not hesitate to commit the crime of nuclear blackmail against the DPRK in the period of the Fatherland Liberation War.

The US, which had developed nuclear weapons and performed nuclear tests during the Second World War, fell into expansive delusion about nuclear weapons and openly boasted that it would not hesitate to use A-bombs, if it was deemed necessary for its security.

The plan for using nuclear weapons in Korea was contained in a part of the plan for an all-out nuclear war against socialist countries, which was worked out by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1949.

According to it, an army group involving the US 1st Marine Corps and Chiang Kai-shek’s 400 000 troops was to land on the northwest coast of Korea, another army group comprising part of the US 1st Marine Corps and Chiang Kai-shek’s 100 000 troops on the northeast coast of Korea and the US 8th Army to attack northward of the 38th Parallel, after cutting off all support from outside by dropping several A-bombs in the northern border areas of the DPRK.

The US hatched plots several times to use A-bombs on every occasion during the war.

Driven into a tight corner by the powerful counterattack of the Korean People’s Army in the initial stage of the war, the US shipped A-bombs into the ROK in August 1950. To use A-bombs in the actual war the relevant personnel of the operations study office under the US Department of the Army appeared in the ROK. They inspected the battlefields and offered their study results on the possibility of using A-bomb to the headquarters of the US Armed Forces in the Far East.

When the Christmas general offensive was frustrated by the counterattack of the KPA in November 1950, the US imperialists intensively discussed the issue of using A-bomb. Later, a B-47 strategic bomber carrying A-bombs was deployed at the US air force base in Okinawa. Atomic bombs were also mounted on a US aircraft carrier standing by in the waters off the Korean peninsula.

MacArthur, commander of the US forces in the Far East, said in December 1950 that they would form a radioactive corridor in the northern part of the DPRK from the East Sea to the West Sea and no living organisms would revive in the region for 60 or 120 years.

According to the order of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff issued in April 1951 to launch a “retaliatory attack” with A-bombs, B-29 strategic bombers of the US air force conducted test flights for dropping A-bombs in the sky over Pyongyang.

The FBI’s report dated April 20 1951 said that the US planned to create a "no-human zone" to which no one could have access by scattering plutonium, nuclear waste and other radioactive materials in a large quantity in the areas crossing the Korean peninsula during the war.

Pinning greater hope on the use of A-bombs in a bid to reverse the worsening situation of the war, the US imperialists resorted to every possible means to carry out the plan in 1953, the last year of the war.

The DPRK people will not forgive the US’ attempt to use nuclear weapons, a war crime. And they will surely make it pay dearly for that.